karlos_1984 Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 I've recently been enjoying a Cooper's Dark ale I made as a basic K&K to 19 ltrs with CCA yeast. For a basic extract beer it's surprisingly good. Although I thought I'd make it again with some extra additions and would like some feedback on the following recipe and what some thoughts would be to improve on the standard extract beer. Was thinking of doing the following: 1 can Cooper's Dark Ale 1kg light DME 200g choc malt 200g roasted barley 150g toasted oats CCA yeast 19 ltrs Would obviously steep the grains/oats for 30mins at about 70 degrees. Would this end up a tasty beer or should I make some adjustments? Basically after something with a nice roasted malt n choc notes to the already delicious dark ale flavour seeing it's winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YeastyBoy Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 Looks good @karlos_1984 Enjoying Dark Ale at this time of the year. Tinkering I run with Dark DME. Then you could drop the roasted barley? Used Crystal malt in my last Dark Ale Brew but I do like your thinking on Choc Malt. Yeast US05. Let us know the result? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlos_1984 Posted June 10, 2019 Author Share Posted June 10, 2019 Like the idea of dark DME. However I took advantage of the uncle Dan's bundle deal that gets u the dark ale and be3 for $17 so figured I'd use that. I know it's not 1kg of only malt and there's a bit of Dex n maltodextrine in there but with the other steeped grains it'd only improve the end result. What would US05 offer instead of the CCA yeast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 It'd be more neutral. If you want the malts to dominate a bit more, use a malt friendly yeast. For an easily accessible one S-04 would work well, and I've used 1469 with success in dark ales of my own. What's the reason for the oats? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lab Cat Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 (edited) When I put 100g of choc in my Hopgobbler (close to Yeastyboy's recipe), it was way bitter to start with. It's mellowing out to something like a lite Porter. If I was to go 200g, I'd be upping the malt to counter it. For me, BE3 would make a thin beer, I like malt backbone in my bitters and darks. At 19l, you might end up with a Mocha monster. If that's what you're going for, it should get there. Edited June 10, 2019 by Lab Rat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malter White Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 8 hours ago, karlos_1984 said: However I took advantage of the uncle Dan's bundle deal that gets u the dark ale and be3 for $17 so figured I'd use that. What a good buy that was. I could only buy 2 because my local Dan only had 2 x BE3 in stock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzala Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 I got one of those bundles too - will be brewing in Saturday but currently undecided on whether to do just the K&K or a Toucan with a Coopers Lager... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlos_1984 Posted June 10, 2019 Author Share Posted June 10, 2019 5 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said: What's the reason for the oats? Purely experimental. Ive toasted them and I want to see if they'll add any sort of flavour. You've told me previously I need to use oats with a base malt to benefit from using them, even though I've added oats to 2 previous extract based brews and it's added body and cloudiness to get the NEIPA style I was after with those respective brews and they were both delicious. I'm all about trying things just because. What's the worst that could happen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristinaS1 Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 Dark LME is made with black malt, not roasted barley, so Dark LME is not a substitute for roasted barley. Most likely the Dark Ale kit is also made with black malt. Black malt lends roasted and bitter chocolate flavour, as you noted in you previous brew. I find Thomas Fawcett's Pale Chocolate malt has nice chocolate notes. Joe White might be similar, as they have a similar colour. To me roasted barley tastes like espresso. I find it very astringent and aggressive. If you want chocolate, I would drop the roasted barley, as it will dominate the flavour. You could replace it with black malt or, for a smoother flavour, Midnight Wheat, or a combo of black malt and Midnight Wheat. Wheat does not have a husk, so it is less astringent. I would be inclined to knock the amount back a bit though. I would suggest 100gm black malt, or 150gm Midnight Wheat, or 75gm black malt + 75gm Midnight Wheat. Good luck, and cheers. Christina. PS Not sure 150gm of toasted oats would be noticeable. I would drop them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted June 10, 2019 Share Posted June 10, 2019 Not suggesting anything negative, just curious. The reason behind mashing oats isn't so much to get the "best" out of them, but to convert the starches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlos_1984 Posted June 11, 2019 Author Share Posted June 11, 2019 I like espresso so I may still include the barley. The other option would be to still use some choc malt and do some late hop additions and kind of make a cascadian dark ale or lower ABV Black IPA. Really love those style of beers too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
der kleine Drache Posted June 30, 2019 Share Posted June 30, 2019 On 6/10/2019 at 1:26 PM, Gazzala said: I got one of those bundles too - will be brewing in Saturday but currently undecided on whether to do just the K&K or a Toucan with a Coopers Lager... Did you make a Coopers Lager Toucan? Any good? Got some tins for half price recently and want to try brewing lager now that I have a temperature controlled fridge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazzala Posted June 30, 2019 Share Posted June 30, 2019 Yeah I did a Toucan with the dark Ale + Lager + 1kg BE3 - currently cold crashing - should be bottling tomorrow. The FG sample tasted really good. Very happy at this stage. Will post an update once it’s been in the bottle a couple of weeks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackSands Posted July 1, 2019 Share Posted July 1, 2019 On 6/11/2019 at 12:23 AM, ChristinaS1 said: Dark LME is made with black malt, not roasted barley, so Dark LME is not a substitute for roasted barley. Most likely the Dark Ale kit is also made with black malt. Black malt lends roasted and bitter chocolate flavour, as you noted in you previous brew. I find Thomas Fawcett's Pale Chocolate malt has nice chocolate notes. Joe White might be similar, as they have a similar colour. To me roasted barley tastes like espresso. I find it very astringent and aggressive. If you want chocolate, I would drop the roasted barley, as it will dominate the flavour. You could replace it with black malt or, for a smoother flavour, Midnight Wheat, or a combo of black malt and Midnight Wheat. Wheat does not have a husk, so it is less astringent. I would be inclined to knock the amount back a bit though. I would suggest 100gm black malt, or 150gm Midnight Wheat, or 75gm black malt + 75gm Midnight Wheat. Good luck, and cheers. Christina. PS Not sure 150gm of toasted oats would be noticeable. I would drop them. I agree re: Fawcett's pale choc. Other darker choc malts I can't tolerate... even Gladfield's light choc is too much! Other options to also consider are Carafa Special I,II & III (dehusked). They say: "Even small amounts of Carafa Special malt in the grain bill produce dark beers of unusual smoothness and mildness with a firm, creamy, white head." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlos_1984 Posted July 22, 2019 Author Share Posted July 22, 2019 I've looked into this recipe again. Have got the following: Dark ale tin 1kg BE3 150g roasted barley 200g choc malt 1200 100g Columbus hops. Want to do a steep/sparge then a decent size boil with the BE3 thrown in. After ideas on a suitable hop schedule with the Columbus. It won't be a dark IPA regarding ABV, bit if I can get a nice balance of the choc and hops similar to a black IPA that'd be great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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